The Sublime Seneca: Ethics, Literature, Metaphysics PDF
Preview The Sublime Seneca: Ethics, Literature, Metaphysics
THE SUBLIME SENECA This is an extended meditation on ethics and literature across the Senecancorpus.There are twochapters onthe MoralLetters,asking how one is to read philosophy or how one can write about being. Moving from the Letters to the Natural Questions and Dialogues, Professor Gunderson explores how authorship works at the level both of the work and of the world, the ethics of seeing, and the question of how one can give up on the here and now and behold instead some other, better ethical sphere. Seneca’s tragedies offer words of caution: desire might well subvert reason at its most pro- found level (Phaedra), or humanity’s painful separation from the sublime might be part of some cruel divine plan (The Madness of Hercules). The book concludes by considering what, if anything, we aretomakeofSeneca’seffortstoenlightenus. erik gunderson is Professor of Classics at the University of Toronto. He is the author of four other scholarly monographs: Laughing Awry: Plautus and Tragicomedy (2015); Nox Philologiae: Aulus Gellius and the Fantasy of the Ancient Library (2009); Declamation, Paternity and Roman Identity: Authority and the Rhetorical Self (2003); and Staging Masculinity: The Rhetoric of PerformanceintheRomanWorld(2000).HeisalsotheeditorofThe Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rhetoric (2009). His work spans languages,genres,anderas,andheconsistentlybringstobearmodern criticalperspectiveswhenexploringtheancientworld. THE SUBLIME SENECA Ethics, literature, metaphysics by ERIK GUNDERSON UniversityPrintingHouse,Cambridgecb28bs,UnitedKingdom CambridgeUniversityPressispartoftheUniversityofCambridge. ItfurtherstheUniversity’smissionbydisseminatingknowledgeinthepursuitof education,learning,andresearchatthehighestinternationallevelsofexcellence. www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9781107090019 ©ErikGunderson2015 Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexception andtotheprovisionsofrelevantcollectivelicensingagreements, noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplacewithoutthewritten permissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublished2015 PrintedintheUnitedKingdombyClays,StIvesplc AcatalogrecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationdata Gunderson,Erik,author. ThesublimeSeneca:ethics,literature,metaphysics/byErikGunderson. pages cm. Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. isbn978-1-107-09001-9 1. Seneca,LuciusAnnaeus,approximately4b.c.–65a.d.Epistulaemoralesad Lucilium. I. Title. pa6661.e8g9 2015 188–dc23 2014032239 isbn978-1-107-09001-9Hardback CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracyof URLsforexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication, anddoesnotguaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain, accurateorappropriate. V both beautiful and sublime Contents Introduction 1 1 MisreadingSeneca 14 2 Writingmetaphysics 37 3 ThenatureofSeneca 56 4 Thespectacleofethics 74 5 LosingSeneca 88 6 Theanalyticsofdesire 105 7 Thelastmonster 127 Conclusion:ThemetaphysicsofSenecanmorals 148 Notes 158 Bibliography 209 Index 221 vii
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